400 Arrested in Federal Firearms Sweep : Crime: The nationwide move targets those with criminal records because penalties are stiffer, officials say. At least 11 are taken into custody in Los Angeles.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms announced Thursday that it had arrested more than 400 people on federal firearms charges, including many with lengthy criminal records.

The overwhelming majority of those arrested, said ATF Director Stephen E. Higgins, had been out on the streets after serving time in prison for violent crimes such as rape, robbery and attempted murder.

He called them “the cream of the crud.”

By late afternoon Thursday, 11 people had been arrested in Los Angeles, but ATF officials here said they could not provide names or details.

ATF spokesman Dot Koester said 193 of the first 326 people arrested were convicted felons.

About 600 arrests are expected by this weekend when the sweep--called Operation Achilles Heel--is completed, according to agency officials.

Other major cities where arrests were made included Albuquerque, N.M., Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Miami, New York, Omaha, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Francisco and Washington.

ATF, a division of the Treasury Department, put enormous resources into the sweep, using more than 1,000 agents, working in conjunction with hundreds of state and local law enforcement officers, Higgins said.

He said the idea behind Operation Achilles Heel is to use the heavy mandatory federal penalties for firearms violations to remove violent criminals from the streets.

He said if a person has at least three felony convictions and is found carrying a firearm, he automatically becomes eligible for a mandatory 15-year sentence. He said one of those arrested Wednesday had more than 20 convictions.

“Getting these bad guys off the streets makes a powerful statement to the law-abiding community and strikes hard at the heart of violent crime,” Higgins said. “No more rotating in and out of jail. No more serving a few months then back to the streets to start the whole tedious pattern all over again.”

The people arrested Wednesday were not necessarily carrying a gun when they were taken into custody, but federal officials must be able to prove that they have possessed weapons after three felony convictions.

Higgins said that under federal statutes, heavy sentences also apply if a person is caught carrying a gun while trafficking in drugs, or if a person is armed within 1,000 feet of a school. He said eight of the initial arrests made in the sweep were in school zones.

During the past five years, ATF and police have used federal firearms laws enacted in 1986 to obtain the convictions of 2,094 felons on sentences totaling 19,612 years, agency officials said.

Jackson reported from Washington and Weinstein from Los Angeles.